To boldly go

Ok, so having been inspired by those who are trucking on and doing L2.1 or just blogging on in general I'm going to keep exploring the Wonderful Wierd Wacky online world.

Who knows, I may even extend myself to LibraryLand in general and life beyond - yes it does exist. Can't guarantee that I'll post with any kind of regularity but post I will.

#23 THE END!

What have I learned?

Heaps. This has been a wonderful excuse to actually have a go at things I've been hearing about for ages and I intend to keep at least some things going.

On my definitely list:
My blog
Bloglines
Del.icio.us
Librarything
Wikis
Zoho

On my occasionally list:
Flickr
Image generators
YouTube

On my interesting but not me list:
Rollyo
Technorati

The really hard thing is going to be keeping the learning going, signing up and giving things a go just because you can. Hopefully L2.0 has made everyone braver about this, I know I am. There is also the questions of how we are going to use some of this stuff out there in libraryland. There are some wonderful possibilities - a del.icio.us account instead of bookmarked favourites on the Ref desk, a wiki instead of a paper manual, a Librarything "staff are reading" instead of a flyer and the possibilites just go on and on.

I'm going to be watching library websites with great interest to see how far the ripples spread.

#22 Audiobooks

Well, I agree that downloadable audiobooks are a very good idea but I must admit that the free selection is a little disappointing, but I guess that's because they have to rely on out of copyright titles etc. I'm not sure about the computerised voice either - even the lady from Telstra sounds a little more realistic.

I had a quick look at audible.com and their selection is quite fantastic. This is definitely something that libraries need to have on their radar and be talking to suppliers about.

#21 Podcasting

I've just added a feed from the Conversation hour on 774 to my Bloglines account. Very occasionally I'm in the car at the right time to hear part of this and am always tempteted to take the very long way round. Now I don't have to worry - I'm getting the whole thing delivered!

Can you believe that they podcast parliament!

#20 YouTube

I am still amazed, even after 11 weeks at how much stuff is out there. Some of it is just wonderful, a lot of it is mind bogglingly stupid and then there are the things that make you laugh.



True confessions - a friend showed this to me but how could I not share.

I quite like using YouTube. The searching is simple, the display is clean and it encourages serendipity which is usually how you find the best stuff. Unless you have friends like mine.

#19 Wonderful World of Web 2.0

I took the easy way out and just had a look at the winners list and blow me down if I didn't discover widget heaven.

I'm a big widget fan - with a name like that how could you not be and YourMinis (http://www.yourminis.com ) won the Widget category. So direct from yourminis I loaded the little weather watcher that you can see a couple of posts below this one. And this is not just a direct copy of someone else's script, I got to customise it which is why you are getting a 5 day forecast for Melbourne (Aus not Florida) with a blue background.

#18 Killer Apps

So

I signed up with Zoho to have a look at the Writer and discovered a whole world of funky stuff that I think is far more exciting. Don't get me wrong, being able to colaborate on a document without emailing a zillion times is great but they also have online meeting software and chat software. I needed this 2 weeks ago when I was trying to work out a way of getting 4 people in different places together for a 30 min meeting without using a phone conference!

Now I know. Stay tuned for lots of online meeting invitations from me in the near future.